Because I'm Right Here, Iris
by Dyl.O'gustin
Summary: When Barry and Iris get taken hostage by a telepathic metahuman, to save everyone Barry decides he has no other choice but to tell Iris the truth that he's The Flash. (sorry if there's mistakes) take on how Iris could have found out


Barry paced back and forth in his lab at the precinct. He and Joe had been trying to crack a case that might involve a meta-human for a few days now. He grabbed a photo from his desk and stuck it onto his board. He concentratedly looked at what he had so far, when he was suddenly interrupted from his thoughts by Iris who'd just walked in. "Hey, you!"

Barry jumped and looked over to see Iris walking in. "Geez, Iris! You scared me."  
"Sorry. Dad says you've been up here all afternoon trying to solve this case, you should really take a break."

"Yeah.. It's just not coming together." Barry stared back at his work with his hands behind his head and Iris took a photo off the board.  
"You think he's a meta-human?" She asked looking at the photo of a tall man in a trench coat. The photo was too dark to see his face.

"Maybe, but nothing adds up. There's been several attacks in the past week where witnesses have said a man could move objects toward them without even touching them. But if he did have these powers, it doesn't make sense why he would need to destroy the entire buildings and take hostages down with them. We don't know his purpose or if he's working alone or when he'll strike. We don't even know if he's really a meta human. The only evidence he leaves behind is the ash and bodies from the fallen buildings. It all happens too quickly for the police or.. The Flash to get notified about it." He replied as she stuck the photo back on the board and put her hands on her hips. "That's it. You've been working all day, you need a break. I've been thinking... We haven't been spending a lot of time together lately. We should go to dinner tonight, and just you know.. talk."

"Yeah, that sounds great. Can we meet at 7, when I get off, and walk to that new Italian place?" Barry replied.

"Sounds good. Don't be late!" Iris teased and walked back downstairs. Barry smiled, then turned his attention back to rearranging the board.

Iris had been meeting with The Flash a lot lately. She asked him questions and he usually dodged them, but sometimes she got good answers to put in her blog. She'd noticed his uniform and mask had changed a lot and tried to ask him about that too, but it was just another question left unanswered. She felt like she knew him somehow, like they'd been close before she even met him. She didn't know how or why, but in the way he moved and spoke, it reminded her of someone. He mostly lectured her about how she shouldn't write about him for her own safety but Iris, stubborn as always, never listened. He was right though. She had been kidnapped multiple times and was put in danger when she went to check out crime scenes, but it was worth it. She loved living a risky life and being saved by the mysterious red streak. She remembered about a month back, the only time he wasn't able to save her, and he came to apologize about it at the hospital.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you tonight. It couldn't be helped."

"It's okay. A girls gotta be her own hero every once in a while."

"I promise I'll never be late again."

"My friend is always saying that and he's always late."

"You're worth being on time for." Then he sped away into the city...

That night Iris waited where Barry had promised to meet her. She pulled out her phone and checked the time. 6:58. Then she saw him walking towards her from the other side of the street. "You're actually on time for once in your life, Barry Allen." She teased as he approached. He chuckled and hooked her arm in his. "You're worth being on time for." This startled Iris a bit, but she didn't long on the thought for very long. That was the same thing The Flash had said to her. Those two should really meet, she thought.

"Let's get going before the tables fill up." They walked down the street together, the city glowed with the colorful lights of buildings and billboard ads and the sun was starting to set, when they saw an explosion about a block away.  
"Oh my god.." Iris said as they both stared.

"You think it's the same bomber that's be-?" He asked but was cut off when Iris broke Barry's link and ran towards the scene. "Iris!"

"I'm sorry Barry, I have to see!"  
"Iris wait! Don't, it's dangerous!" Barry chased after her at normal speed but it was hard to get through the huge crowd running in the opposite direction of him. He caught up to her just a few yards away from where the explosion had happened. The tall building was now bursting into flames at the top and slowly spreading to lower floors. Iris screamed as she was pulled through the air, across the sidewalk closer to the building. "IRIS!" Barry screamed at the top of his lungs. A dark figure stood where she dropped to the ground, at the entrance to the slowly burning building. Holding one hand out towards Iris and the other in his trench coat pocket, the man Barry and Joe had been trying to locate lifted his free hand towards Barry, and he was pulled through the air over to where Iris lay. Then everything went dark.

Barry awoke in a large room, tinted red and orange from the flames spreading through the floors of the building. He tried to move but realized he was tied to a chair. "Barry!" Iris sobbed, tied up next to him. He realized he was one of many people held hostage in the burning building. There were no guards, and the man in the trench coat was gone. He needed to get everyone out before the building collapsed, which could be any second. He struggled against the thick duct tape around his hands and feet but couldn't get free. He reached into his back pocket where he kept an emergency pocket knife for situations like these, and started cutting the duct tape. He sliced through his arm ties and then reached down to do his feet. When he was done he stood and dropped to the back of Iris's chair to get her free.

"Hurry! The fire from the explosion is growing Barry!" She cried. Then, barely loud enough for Barry to hear, she said "Where is The Flash?... He should be here." Barry cut through the last of her restraints and helped her up. She immediately hugged him tight and sobbed. Out of the corner of her eye, Iris saw the dark man standing in the door way. "Barry, look out!" They both ducked as the man pushed some sort pipe from the wall towards them without even touching it.

"Follow me!" Barry said, gripping Iris's hand. They crawled to the exit as fast as they humanly could, barely dodging all the man's attacks. When they got far enough out of his sight they stood and ran down a hallway that the fire had not yet reached. "He must be telekinetic or something. Joe was right, another meta-human.." Barry said, trying to figure out why he had taken hostages and destroyed the building.  
"I don't understand. Where is he! The Flash should have been here a long time ago! Why is he... why is he not here!?" Iris asked almost in tears. She continued to question why her guardian angel was absent from this meta attack as they ran down many flights of stairs and hallways in the building, hiding from the telekinetic man. Barry knew what he had to do in order for those people and Iris to make it out alive. The building could collapse any minute. The ceiling was already crumbling. He stopped and grabbed both of her arms and held her closer.  
"Why hasn't The Flash rushed in to save everyone by now?" Iris asked for the millionth time.  
"Because, Iris!" He said yelled impatiently and nervously looking dead straight into her eyes. He then, more calmer and honest now, said "...I'm right here." They both stayed silent for a long moment. Iris opened her mouth but nothing came out. She looked into her best friends eyes, confused and scared. She knew deep down what he just said was true. Her mind started putting everything weird thing that'd happened to her that year together and she understood. Barry WAS The Flash, and there was no doubting it. They heard a bang and saw the meta coming their way from the other end of a long hallway.  
"Go! Iris you need to go, now!" He pointed at the direction for her to run.

"I'm not leaving you Barry!" She said furiously.

"Iris, I'll be fine! You need to get out of here!"

"But-"

"Now!" And she ran. At the end of the hall she stopped to look back and saw Barry disappear in a familiar flash of lightning. He returned in a split second equipped with his scarlett suit. He saw Iris had stopped running and yelled again "GO!", and she did. She ran to the exit of the building without looking back again for Barry. She finally made it outside of the building, back to the sidewalk, and one by one people started to be sped outside into a safe area. She saw police cars and fire trucks flipped over in the streets, probably caused by the man who kidnapped them. She looked up to the building and saw the whole fire suddenly go out.

Meanwhile Barry sped around the meta, dodging everything he threw at him. He lured the man into another room so he could have time to get the other hostages out. He cut the ties on the people and one by one rushed them out onto the sidewalk. After everyone was safe he came back up to the higher floors and rotated his arms at super speed, putting out the entire fire like wells had taught him. He ran up behind the meta and speed punched him repeatedly until he fell to the ground.

"Is that all you got?" The man said menacingly in a deep voice, pushing himself off the ground and wiping blood off his lip. Before Barry could turn around, the man simply raised his hand and Barry went flying. He repeatedly slammed him into the wall, causing it to crumble even faster. Barry heard a piercing screech in his ears. The man had somehow damaged his coms and he couldn't hear Cisco or Caitlyn. He was forced to rip the coms out of his mask to make the screeching noise stop. The crumbling of the ceiling distracted him, giving Barry a second to get out of his range. "Why did you take all those people!? Why are you blowing up buildings and destroying the city?" Barry yelled from behind him. The man turned toward him but Barry was too quick.

"To show the feds I couldn't be stopped. They tried to put me down, but now, with this.. power, I'm inconquerable!"

"We'll see about that."  
The meta raised both of his arms and the room shook. Shards of glass broke from the window and hovered around the man, all of them aimed right at Barry. "Oh shiii-"

The glass flew toward him in slow motion. He moved the shards into different directions as he ran at the man and finally shoved him to the ground with all the force he had. Barry yelled in pain. The shards returned to normal speed when he stopped running and one pierced into his shoulder. He was forced to shake off the pain so he could stop this guy before the building fell on both of them. He started to run around the meta in a tornado of lightning, cutting off the air inside until the man passed out. Barry stood above the man, catching his breath for a second. Then he scooped up the unconscious meta and took him to the STAR Labs prison. He took care of locking him up pretty quickly so that he could still have time to run back to the building to make sure nobody was still inside. He could tell Cisco and Caitlyn what had happened later, there was someone more important he needed to talk to..

When he was done with the sweep, the building finally started to collapse upon itself. He escaped out of the back entrance just in time. When the building was nothing but a dust cloud, he turned away to see Iris waiting on a crate in the the alley way behind where the building once stood. She looked up at him as he approached her and slid down his mask to reveal his hair in a dirty, tangled mess, and his face covered in soot from the fire. "Iris.." He said in a guilty voice, knowing he was in so much trouble. He couldn't find the right words to say to her; she would probably try and fight whatever he said with more things he lied to her about. She looked at him, shaking in tears from the events she had just gone through, and finished his sentence for him before he could think of what to say.  
"No. Don't try and explain. I understand.. Everything makes so much sense now. At first I was just shocked and confused, then angry at you, but then I started thinking about why you never told me. I saw your point of view. The reasons why you didn't tell me before... and I realized that I would have done the same thing if it was the other way around." That was not the answer he was expecting. He was thinking he would get slapped or she would be so angry and hurt that she would not want to talk to him. She stood up from the crate and studied him. Seeing her life long best friend/brother in that familiar scarlett suit with the lighting bolt emblem was a sight that her brain was still trying to believe.

"Iris.. I love you. Not just in a friend kind of way. I could never get over it if something happened to you.. and if I had told you I was The Flash it would put you in ten times more danger than you already were in just writing your blog. I didn't tell you how I felt.. because I was scared you wouldn't feel the same and it would be different between us, and if you did feel the same it would put you in danger from being close to me..I'm so sorry I didn't-"  
She pressed her finger to his lips and said softly, "Barry? ...Stop talking." And then she kissed him.

The space between them disappeared as they passionately kissed. All this time Barry had worried she wouldn't feel the same way and that she would hate him for not telling her he was The Flash, but it was just the opposite. He couldn't stop himself from trying to put everything he was feeling into this kiss. All the years of loving Iris, all the longing, all the hope. It was too good to be true. Their lips unlocked and they both slowly pulled away and looked into each other's eyes. Their smiles widened and their eyes both sparkled with tears, but not of sadness. "I love you, Barry Allen." Barry ran his fingers through her hair, moving all the strands from her face. "I've always loved you, and I'll never stop loving you." They pulled back in for another kiss. Iris threw her arms around his shoulders and he lifted her up by her waist. He spun her around and when he set her back down they had to break apart to let out their laughter. Iris's eyes drifted towards Barry's shoulder and widened. "Barry, oh my god there's a huge piece of glass in your shoulder!" Barry looked at his left shoulder startled. He completely forgot about the painful shard that flew into him during the battle. He grabbed it and started to pull. Iris waved her arms about trying to get him to stop. "No! No, don't Barry it'll-" she stopped talking and stared in awe as Barry pulled the shard out, and his skin completely healed around the wound in less than 7 seconds. "Wha-"  
"It's ok, I heal quickly too." He said as Iris laughed and cried tears of joy at the same time. They both looked as the backup police cars started turning the corner.

"I should go.. Before.."

"Yeah.. I know." She smiled at him and said, "So rain check on our dinner then?" Barry laughed, then took her hands. "I think I have something better." He picked her up bridal style and raced her to S.T.A.R Labs just as the police pulled up to the place they stood. Iris stared in wonder at the cortex filled with computers tracking all crime in Central City and a mannequin/statue standing in the center of it all, holding one of Barry's spare suits. She had been here before when Barry was in his coma but she'd never seen anything on the computers but Barry's state of health and obviously never had seen the statue. Barry's friends stared back at them wide eyed. Cisco was about to yell, "WHY... THE. HELLWEREYOUNOTANSWERING YOURCOMMS!?" but saw Iris and decided to let her and Barry have their moment. He grabbed her hand again and directed her to the treadmill room. "Time for the answers to ALL your questions." He said as she looked back at him excitedly.


End file.
